


chance meetings

by Lord Vitya (ProtoDan)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: F/M, Multiple Inquisitors, Slavery, Unethical Experimentation, my own weird interpretation of how Dark Heal works
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-26
Updated: 2016-11-26
Packaged: 2018-09-02 06:49:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8654923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProtoDan/pseuds/Lord%20Vitya
Summary: Vitya is not special. If there is one thing he has learned over the course of his short, miserable lifetime, it is this. Even here, hand-picked from the masses of the factory to train as a Sith, he has no name; he is filth, he is slave. She isn't special either, not at first.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [KathrynShadow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KathrynShadow/gifts).



Vitya is not special. Throughout his whole life, this has been beaten into his head. He has no name, no identity. He is a number, a designation, a point on a line. He is replaceable. He is a cog in a machine. He is nothing.

Even his suffering, unique as it was, is one tear in an ocean of human and alien misery. His sister was sold as a dancer-whore to some Hutt a star system and a half away, and he has met women and men snatched up by the Sith who had been whores systems away from here. His father died with blackened lungs down in the mines, his mother devoured by a malfunctioning factory machine. So did the mothers and fathers of half the people on this ship. 

It seems the only thing that sets him apart are his cybernetics. The other slaves--those who talk at all when they're let out of their cells, let alone to him or others--mutter to one another behind their hands, casting furtive glances towards him and his mechanical eye. They don't understand why his masters would graft expensive augmentations to his flesh. He was only a slave, after all. Vitya shrugs off the questions whenever they come to him directly--which is rarely--lies and says he doesn't know either. They were insane, perhaps. They needed a test subject. Who knows, really?

(What he doesn't say is that he was never meant to survive. The surgery was meant to kill him, to ensure he never ran his mouth again. He heard them celebrating his death even as they cut him open, because they didn't put enough anesthetic into his blood to put him to sleep.)

Vitya is not special. If there is one thing he has learned over the course of his short, miserable lifetime, it is this. Even here, hand-picked from the masses of the factory to train as a Sith, he has no name; he is _filth,_  he is _slave._

* * *

 

She isn't special either, not at first. The first time they meet--the first time they encounter one another, rather, is when he's being shoved to the back of the shuttle, and they are both cargo to Korriban. She's small, lithe, with hard eyes and a mess of parallel scars running down the right half of her face. Were it not for that and the constant look of bored exasperation, she would be pretty. Vitya takes as much note of her as he does all the other slaves--enough to assess whether she is a threat to him.

Potentially, he decides, but she seems so profoundly uninterested in the entire universe that he isn't too concerned that she'll attack him. 

They're shuffled off the ship the moment it touches the sand of Korriban, and Vitya assumes--accurately, for the most part--that he will never see any of the others again. Either he will die, or they will. It seems to be an integral part of the graduation process. 

* * *

 

Weeks pass. Most of the others fall, either to the wildlife or to the booby traps of other hopefuls. Vitya encounters the girl again, crouched behind a boulder while patching up a wounded shoulder. She looks at him, her scarred eyebrow raised as if daring him to question her presence--or, perhaps, to challenge her. 

"You should go to the MedCenter," Vitya tells her. "That looks deep enough to interfere with holding a lightsaber."

"And get picked off the second I stand up, by animals or other acolytes?" She rolls her eyes. "Save your pity. I don't need it."

Vitya's only reply is a snort of derision. Her funeral, then. Harkun probably won't even notice her absence if that injury gets her killed--either by weakness making her an easy target, or by an infection in the wound. Does anyone even know her name? He starts to walk away.

Starts. His boot touches the sand, and he considers the fact that he would be the only one to notice she was ever gone, the only one to carry her memory. The girl is clearly strong, or else she wouldn't have lasted this long. Is it not a waste to just leave her to whatever fate might lie ahead?

Damn his sentimental streak. Vitya keeps walking, though he shuts his eye and focuses on the slow current of the Force as it moves through and around him. He thinks of Harkun's sneering eyes, of spitting in the face of the Overseer's expectation that all the slaves will die. He thinks of how satisfying it will be to survive this out of pure spite for others' doubts.

There is a pulse, syncopated with his own heartbeat, moving out from his chest to his hands, a quiet electric thrum rushing through his blood. Vitya breathes deeply, careful not to break the circuit between his core and his fingertips. The Force is an energy source; he is both its generator and its conduit. 

A quiet crackle. Vitya spreads his fingers, letting out a spark in the girl's direction. It occurs to him that he has never so much as thought of using his healing on another person. No time like the present to see whether or not it will work, he supposes. The sand crunches under his boots. Vitya opens his eye and looks up at the sky, slowly letting out his held breath. For a moment, there is silence.

The girl sighs. "I told you to save your pity," she says. (It worked, then. Excellent.) "I suppose you expect me to thank you."

"Thank me by surviving your training," Vita says without looking back. "Good hunting."

* * *

 

She survives, naturally. Vitya encounters her again weeks later, marching out of one of the many Sith tombs with a sour, unimpressed expression that he's beginning to think is as stuck on her face as his own cybernetics. He doesn't even bother to bite back a smug grin at the sight of her.

"You're welcome," he tells her. Her only answer is a flat look. Undeterred, Vitya leans against the smoothest patch of stone and continues. "You know, if we keep bumping into one another," he says, "people are going to talk."

"Then perhaps we should avoid each other," the girl suggests dryly, though there doesn't seem to be any active malice in her tone. It's hard to tell.

"Actually, I was thinking it might be best if we were introduced," Vitya says. "Perhaps form a partnership to ensure we both leave this planet alive, hm?"

For a moment, she goes absolutely quiet. Her eyes narrow, scrutinizing him, analyzing him. Vitya smiles; it isn't as if he has any more to hide than all the other Sith hopefuls. He can see gears turning in her head, and he waits.

The girl gives a quiet sigh of exasperation. "Shirenne," she says. "My name is Shirenne. Yours?"

How odd it is to think of another person even considering his given name valid. "Vitya," he says, adding a deep bow for emphasis. "A pleasure to make your acquaintance, I'm sure."

Shirenne cocks an eyebrow. "You're awfully pretentious for an ex-slave. Was your master some sort of a philosopher?"

Vitya chuckles, pushing himself away from the rock and stepping into place beside her. He has no business inside the tomb, so he starts walking with the intent to go back to the Academy. "Hardly. I worked in a factory freighter. Some of the supervisors thought themselves intellectuals, and they didn't keep good locks on their data books."

Shirenne's lips quirk up in something dangerously close to a smile. Vitya can't help but wonder if it hurts her face to do that after so much unimpressed glaring. She takes a few quick strides to catch up with him properly, apparently unperturbed by the considerable difference in height between them. "So you stole them," she says. "Did they catch you?"

Vitya turns his head, pointing to his cybernetic eye and the thick ribbons of scar tissue across the entire right side of his face. Tokens from his masters, both from the beating he received on being caught and from their decision to simply graft experimental augmentations directly to his skin."What do you think?"

Shirenne nods once. "Fair enough." 

That seems to be the end of the conversation. They walk the rest of the way to the Academy in silence, ambivalent to the other acolytes and their struggles. After all, the others are just that--others. They're nameless, faceless competitors. They aren't special.

Vitya, however, has begun to consider for the first time in his life that he might be.

**Author's Note:**

> Shirenne is KathrynShadow's Sith Assassin; Vitya is my Sith Sorcerer. Expect to see more of these two in the future. :^)


End file.
